RSVIP: Kim Kardashian Brings Sexy to the FIFI Awards

by Jeffrey Slonim (RSS feed)
Jun 11th 2010 at 4:01PM

An Oscar is to film and a Tony is to Broadway what a FIFI Award is to fragrance.

On June 10, the 38th Annual FIFI Awards commandeered New York's Downtown Armory, adding a sniff of glamour to the behemoth brick Army post. Kim Kardashian appeared vacuum-packed into a gown by Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad. The double breasted scoop in the front, with six large buttons, added gravity-defying lift to Kardashian's ample cleavage. Like everyone at the event, she spoke Fragrancese. "It's basically all my favorite memories in a bottle," said the reality-show star of her eponymous scent, aptly subtitled in the sexy ads, "The voluptuous new fragrance."

"The gardenia [note] is for the family vacations with my dad in Hawaii," she said. "Tuberose reminds me of my mom. All my favorite scents happen to be white florals. I added a bit of orange blossom for citrus," she told Luxist.

Usher, honored as the FIFI's 2010 Fragrance Celebrity of the Year, wore a padded black waistcoat by Alexander McQueen that resembled fencing garb. He called his move into fragrance "the branding of Usher," and speaking of his scent "VIP," he told Luxist, "This will be my fifth fragrance. I wanted intelligence; I wanted elegance. If you look at the advertisements, the weight of the bottle, the essence, it's all top-shelf."

"When everything else comes off," he quipped, "the fragrance stays on."

"I was happy to find my new love, new passion, which is fragrance," he said, then posing with a soldier in fatigues.

Exactly how tall is actress Leelee Sobieski, there to present Best Interior Scent? "I'm 5'10" and a quarter," she said. And the stilettos? "Six inches." Luxist calculated: 6'4." The actress said she uses "different fragrances when I work as different characters."

The Armory space was decorated with a quarter mile horseshoe of white couches. John Varvatos Artisan, a bottle encased in wicker, took Best Design in the Men's Prestige category. La Prairie's Life Threads Collection, bottles wrapped in silver, gold, and platinum threads won for packaging. Sobieski gave Harry Slatkin a FIFI for Best Home Scent. "I won for my Scentbug," Slatkin explained backstage. "Its a round egg that runs on batteries. You simply open a drawer on the device, put in a few drops for the different scents, push a button, and relax."

"Fragrance is really a dream," FIFI Hall of Fame recipient Michael Kors told Luxist. "There is no age, no size. It doesn't matter where you live. It cuts across all the barriers that fashion never does."

A curvy Sofia Vergara, from the television comedy "Modern Family" said she was wearing a men's scent from Hermes for its lack of floral notes. "I love fragrance," said "American Idol"'s Randy Jackson, also a presenter, who had combined a bold yellow gingham shirt and blue tie with polka dots.

"Like music," said Jackson. "It's all about combining the notes."

Besides tart Grey Goose vodka cocktails served from a cart with dry ice in a silver cup, sizzling salsa music, paella, and roast suckling pig, what drew the bevy of B+ listers? A colorful leather bag from Dooney & Bourke filled with an attractive, oversized Michael Kors watch and many nominated fragrances.

A celebrity gift bag chockablock with scents: $4000. Jackson kidding that the bottle of his first scent would be shaped like his body: priceless.

Tags: celebrity fragrance, fifi awards, fragrance foundation, kim kardashian, leelee sobieski, michael kors, rsvip, Sofia Vergara, usher